Defend Democracy: Term Limits for the High Court

As you probably heard, last week the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that it is a violation of the First Amendment for Congress to limit corporate spending related to political campaigns. The decision overturned thirty years of campaign finance reform legislation, including the famous bipartisan McCain-Feingold bill. As a result, there are now absolutely no limits on how much a corporation can spend to promote a politician's campaign. Exxon-Mobil may spend as much as it pleases to get Sarah Palin elected in 2012. In turn, the NEA or the UAW can pour as much as it wants into an effort to elect Kucinich should he run again in the future.

There is no question in my mind that this decision will hurt the efforts of honest candidates in favor of those who are willing to take campaign contributions in exchange for political favors once they are in office (which may or may not include Palin and Kucinich, I was just using them as examples). How can we expect anybody to be capable of launching a successful campaign against a rival who is being promoted by millions of dollars from a corporate interest? It seems impossible to me, and the tragedy of this impossibility is that it wrecks the dream of what the framers of the Constitution intended: for this to be a country that was led by independent citizens with the good of their fellow Americans as their central ambition.

In addition, it baffles me how these five justices have come to the conclusion that corporations are persons, are citizens, with all the rights the Constitution affords. I suppose now that Congress is prevented from limiting their speech it follows that next week we will bestow on them the right to vote. But honestly, even if we did, that would give them less power than this terrible decision already has.

I say it baffles me, but at the same time it is woefully characteristic of a body which found that black men are property, that separate but equal is equal, that the right to privacy affords the Supreme Court the authority to decide when life begins, that it does not infringe on a citizen's rights for the government to seize his/her land and give it to private interest.

Which is why for a long time I have fervently supported the idea that Supreme Court justices should be given term limits. Those who disagree may argue that this would upset the delicate system of checks and balances that our Constitution has established, but to this I reply that the Constitution did not give the Supreme Court the power of judicial review -- the Court gave it to itself. Congress writes laws. The president can veto them. Congress can override a veto. The Supreme Court can find a law unconstitutional. Congress and the president may choose who sits on the court... every 36 years. Or Congress may attempt the near impossible task of amending the Constitution. Or Congress may not pay the Supreme Court building's electric bill. Those are the checks; good luck finding the balance.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is one over-reaching decision too many. Reversing these disastrous decisions needs to be easier. It is time for the men and women of the Supreme Court to get a little taste of American government, in the form of a six-year term. It is time to hold them accountable for the havoc they have wreaked on American democracy.

Update: The original wording of this post implied that the Citizens v. Commission  allowed corporations to give money directly to political campaigns rather than creating their own campaign efforts. I have changed the post to reflect the true nature of the ruling.